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Syrian Civil War Developments

Britain is to push for a UN security council resolution condemning a crackdown on anti-government protesters in Syria.

The foreign secretary, William Hague, told parliament that the security council had a "responsibility to speak out" and warned of new European Union sanctions unless demands were met.

Hague said diplomats were circulating a draft resolution to secure the necessary support from the nine council members.

He said the proposals would bring action taken against Syria in line with measures imposed on other countries in the region facing political upheaval. However, they fell short of the no-fly zone mandated against Libya under a resolution passed earlier this year that launched a Nato bombing campaign against Muammar Gaddafi's forces.

"We must show the same resolve and purpose in supporting change and democratic development elsewhere in the region," Hague said.

The draft calls on Syria's president Bashar al-Assad and his government to capitulate to the demands of pro-democracy protesters, free "prisoners of conscience", lift internet restrictions and co-operate with UN human rights officials. It does not detail or threaten any UN sanctions.

"We are working to persuade other countries that the security council has a responsibility to speak out," he said. "President Assad is losing legitimacy and should reform or step aside."

Hague said an EU arms embargo, asset freeze and visa ban on 13 officials imposed against Syria last month had proved successful, but tougher measures could follow.

"We must show the same resolve and purpose in supporting change and democratic development elsewhere in the region, for example using the economic appeal of the EU to act as a magnet for positive change in the region.

"Since my last statement our efforts to agree EU sanctions against President Assad and other individuals responsible for the violence and repression in Syria have been successful. We are exploring with our European partners the potential for further sanctions if the violence continues."

Human rights groups claim that more than 1,000 people have been killed in more than three months of demonstrations in Syria.

Trust gets you killed, love gets you hurt, and being REAL gets you hated.

Still, it is an internal affair of Syria. No genocide or crimes against humanity taking place. I will believe Britain more seriously if it takes up the same charge against China or even any of the western powers.

Still, it is an internal affair of Syria. No genocide or crimes against humanity taking place. I will believe Britain more seriously if it takes up the same charge against China or even any of the western powers.

Except that de facto will never happen so it'd be silly to try? With the situation in Syria and Libya to a greater extent, there is a possibility, although remote, that China and Russia will simply abstain from voting. But there isn't even the slightest chance that a resolution condemning actions in a P5 nation/a very close ally of a P5 nation will even see much debate on the floor, so aside from using it as a bit of a futile PR move, it doesn't accomplish anything at all.

The concern I have is that Britain has a long history of colonialism and imperialism so it is not exactly the right country to be interfering with other countries' affairs, especially when Britain used to rule Syria during the old days of the British Empire.

I question Britain's right to interfere with other countries' internal affairs on questions of morality and humanity when it has consistently failed to acknowledge or even apologize for its actions during the British Empire when it committed atrocities and actions that would be adequetly described as crimes against humanity today.

Except that de facto will never happen so it'd be silly to try? With the situation in Syria and Libya to a greater extent, there is a possibility, although remote, that China and Russia will simply abstain from voting. But there isn't even the slightest chance that a resolution condemning actions in a P5 nation/a very close ally of a P5 nation will even see much debate on the floor, so aside from using it as a bit of a futile PR move, it doesn't accomplish anything at all.

Then by that standard, Britain shouldn't be doing it to others when no other countries can do against Britain.

The concern I have is that Britain has a long history of colonialism and imperialism so it is not exactly the right country to be interfering with other countries' affairs, especially when Britain used to rule Syria during the old days of the British Empire.

I question Britain's right to interfere with other countries' internal affairs on questions of morality and humanity when it has consistently failed to acknowledge or even apologize for its actions during the British Empire when it committed atrocities and actions that would be adequetly described as crimes against humanity today.

Britian is the red herring. Just sounding a clarion call.

Your main opposition is to the concept of responsibility to protect. The idea that if a country does not take care of its ppl or attacks them that gives other countries a right to intervene.

Britan won't be acting alone but in concert with others. You can blame Blair for successfully advocating the idea in 1999 but what will you do about the others that join in. All we can be sure of is a BRIC abstention along with Germany.

Your main opposition is to the concept of responsibility to protect. The idea that if a country does not take care of its ppl or attacks them that gives other countries a right to intervene.

NO IT DOESN'T!!

Britan won't be acting alone but in concert with others. You can blame Blair for successfully advocating the idea in 1999 but what will you do about the others that join in. All we can be sure of is a BRIC abstention along with Germany.

I really don't care what other nations think of but the premise is that the affairs of that country is its own. It did not sign away its sovereignity. The judges and jury of another country are not qualified to sit and judge the actions that transpired in another country. We, or in my case, did not subordinate ourselve to the will of another country by consent.

If anyone in India would advocate another country to get involved in the affairs of India such as, for example, the riots in Gujurat supposing that the GoI turned a blind eye and did nothing, I would immediately get in front of that person and tell that person to take it back or be tried for treason no matter how his intentions was for the good or well meant.

Otherwise, you open the door to constant interference in the internal affairs of a country by other and outside foreign powers, effectively turning that county into a banana republic. For instance, in Pakistan, you got US involved in the decision on who to appoint as the leader of the country. Musharraf went when US withdrew its support and backed Zardari. Or in the case of Egypt, you got outside powers determining the fate of who gets to rule the country.

I don't want that to happen to India. Only Indians can determine who gets to be the leader of India. USA, Britain or any other power gets NOOOO SAY whatsoever regardless of the political or geopolitical climate in that region. I would view anyone who would endeavor any outside foreign power involved in the domestic affairs with great hostility and unforgiveness and a view that that person is of the highest traitor to India and its people.

Otherwise, you open the door to constant interference in the internal affairs of a country by other and outside foreign powers, effectively turning that county into a banana republic.

Precisely why BRIC is on the same page when it comes to this subject.

In the end so long as there is no P5 veto & nine aye's then the motion gets passed. Happened in the case of Libya.

Originally Posted by Blademaster

For instance, in Pakistan, you got US involved in the decision on who to appoint as the leader of the country. Musharraf went when US withdrew its support and backed Zardari. Or in the case of Egypt, you got outside powers determining the fate of who gets to rule the country.

Yes, but in other areas Pakistan gets away does it not. So it isn't as clear cut or we would have no problems with Pakistan, Iran or N.Korea.

Originally Posted by Blademaster

I don't want that to happen to India. Only Indians can determine who gets to be the leader of India. USA, Britain or any other power gets NOOOO SAY whatsoever regardless of the political or geopolitical climate in that region. I would view anyone who would endeavor any outside foreign power involved in the domestic affairs with great hostility and unforgiveness and a view that that person is of the highest traitor to India and its people.

You mentioned China eariler. There is no support to do the same in China therefore it does not happen. Neither is there in India or Bahrain or Saudi Arabia.

In the end its down to what a country can do to prevent others from intervening.

It depends on a coalition being formed and even in that case it isn't easy.

Israel is a case in point here.

So you can see even tho the concept exists it can't always be enforced.

You are missing the point. Once you start that trend, it is pretty hard to stop and before you know it, you got the likes of Androhoti Roy calling for UN, EU interference in Indian affairs even when some of the decisions made by the GOI are not popular with other countries. The best way to avoid that is avoid starting a trend that remotely resembles any of that.

Like i said above ,,,,at the moment , hey Kerem bud , keep your head down m8y

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian forces shot dead five protesters and wounded scores more on Friday, witnesses said, in a widening military crackdown on popular unrest that has sent thousands of civilians fleeing into Turkey this week.

The Syrian army swept into a northwest border town where clashes raged earlier this week and begun to arrest "armed" opponents, state television said, while tens of thousands of people marched anew around Syria despite President Bashar al-Assad's increasing resort to armed repression.

"Long live Syria, down with Bashar al-Assad!" protesters shouted in many of the rallies staged after Friday prayers across the country of 20 million.

Security forces shot dead at least two demonstrators taking part in a rally in the Qaboun district of the capital Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Some troops fired from rooftops at marchers, activists said.

Residents said government forces also killed two protesters in the village of Busra al-Harir in the southern Hauran plain and also fired on thousands defying a heavy security presence in the southern city of Deraa, fount of the three-month-old revolt that seeks the removal of authoritarian President Assad.

"There was a demonstration of 1,000 people when security police fired from their cars," a Busra al-Harir resident said, giving the names of the dead as Abdelmuttaleb al-Hariri and Adnan al-Hariri. The latter was an amputee, residents said.

However, state television said unidentified gunmen killed a member of the security forces and a civilian in Busra al-Harir.

A fifth protester was shot dead in the Mediterranean port city of Latakia, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Syria has barred most independent media from the country, making it difficult to verify accounts of the bloodshed.

Witnesses told Reuters by telephone that some of the protesters shot by security forces in Deraa -- including two who were hit in the head and chest -- were hurriedly carried by youths to a nearby makeshift clinic.

Some 2,800 Syrian civilians have fled cross the northwest border into Turkey. Turkish officials said Jisr al-Shughour, a town of 50,000, was largely abandoned by residents fearing a military assault following the clashes earlier this week.

A Turkish newspaper said Ankara was looking into creating a buffer zone along the border as a contingency if hundreds of thousands of Syrians were drive out by the military campaign to stamp out protests against 41 years of Assad family domination.

MUTINY WITHIN SECURITY FORCES?

Syrian authorities said that "armed gangs" killed more than 120 security personnel in Jisr al-Shughour earlier this week.

But rights campaigners said scores of civilians had been killed after some soldiers refused to shoot at protesters and fighting broke out between loyalist and mutinous forces.

Human rights activists aired a YouTube video purporting to be from Lieutenant Colonel Hussein Armoush saying he had defected with several soldiers to "join the ranks of the masses demanding freedom and democracy.

"We had sworn in the armed forces to direct our fire at the enemy and not on our own defenceless people. Our duty is to protect citizens and not to kill them," he said in the video, whose authenticity could not be immediately verified.

Fifty-seven Syrians from Jisr al-Shughour were in hospital in Turkey, its state-run Anatolian news agency said on Friday. Ahmad Abdellatif, 27, who lay paralysed in hospital with three bullet wounds, said Syrian military intelligence agents on rooftops had fired on him and other unarmed people who assembled in a public garden after a funeral for a protester.

Abu Ata, who was shot in the back, said he was among Red Crescent workers in identifiable orange uniforms who came to aid mourners at another funeral this week when they came under fire from rooftops. "It was a deliberate hit aimed to kill," he said.

The northwest border area, like other protest hotspots, is prone to tension between majority Sunni Muslims and Assad's Alawite sect, which dominates the Syrian power elite. The Jisr al-Shughour violence may hint at splits within security forces, where commanders are mainly Alawite and conscripts Sunni, that would increase the risk of Syria descending into civil war.

FURTHER PROTESTS ACROSS COUNTRY

Demonstrators demanding the "downfall of the regime" and chanting slogans in support of compatriots in Jisr al-Shughour took to the streets in the oil-producing eastern province of Deir al-Zor, the central cities of Hama and Homs, the main Mediterranean port of Latakia and the Tabaqa region on the Euphrates River in Raqqa province, activists and residents said.

Tens of thousands of people marched unchallenged in Hama, they said, well above the turnout of the previous Friday when security forces killed at least 70 protesters.

Protests were also reported in five Damascus suburbs, Syria's second largest city Aleppo and Maarat al-Numan near Jisr al-Shughour, but their size was not immediately clear.

Inhabitants said at least 15,000 troops along with some 40 tanks and troop carriers had deployed near Jisr al-Shughour.

"Jisr al-Shughour is practically empty. People were not going to sit and be slaughtered like lambs," said one refugee who crossed on Wednesday and who gave his name as Mohammad.

Residents said troops and armoured vehicles heading for the town had stormed Sarmaniya village, 10 km (six miles) south of Jisr al-Shughour, and cut off the region's communications.

"They began as usual by firing heavy machineguns into the village. But the people of Sarmaniya had mostly left. Hundreds of troops and security forces have defected in the last several days. They (pro-Assad forces) might be thinking that they will find some in Sarmaniya," said the witness, who was speaking by phone from the outskirts of Jisr al-Shughour.

RED CROSS CALL FOR ACCESS

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) urged Syria to allow its aid workers wider access to the civilian population without further delay, including people who have been wounded or detained in the military clampdown on public dissent.

Rights groups say over 1,100 civilians have been killed since March in the revolt to press demands for more political freedoms and an end to corruption and poverty.

The latest reports of Assad's military campaign against protesters intensified international concerns over his handling of popular pressure for democratisation inspired by uprisings against entrenched autocrats elsewhere in the Arab world.

U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday the legitimacy of Assad's rule was open to question. "I would say the slaughter of innocent lives in Syria should be a problem and a concern for everybody," Gates told a seminar in Brussels.

"Whether Assad still has the legitimacy to govern his own country, I think is a question everyone needs to consider."

Britain, France, Germany and Portugal have asked the U.N. Security Council to condemn Assad, although veto-wielding Russia has said it would oppose such a move as counter-productive.

World powers have shown no appetite for any Libya-style military intervention in Syria because it sits on a major fault line of Middle East conflict, allied with Iran against nearby Israel. The Syrian leadership has shrugged off mild punitive sanctions imposed so far, and verbal reprimands from abroad.

REFUGEES

Anatolian news agency said the number of Syrians seeking refuge across the border had reached 2,792.

At the Yayladagi refugee camp, nestled in a scenic valley close to the Syrian frontier, children played football while families sat talking under trees sheltering them from the baking Middle East summer sun. Police kept journalists away.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan reiterated on Thursday that Turkey would keep its gates open to people from Syria. But he complained that Damascus was taking the issue "very lightly" and Ankara could not defend its "inhumane" reply to the unrest.

Assad, 45, has promised reforms, even while cracking down on unrest posing the gravest threat to his 11 years of iron rule.

I question Britain's right to interfere with other countries' internal affairs on questions of morality and humanity when it has consistently failed to acknowledge or even apologize for its actions during the British Empire when it committed atrocities and actions that would be adequetly described as crimes against humanity today.

To that end should the Americans apologize to the Indians? Should the Chinese for Tibet? Why should todays people apologize for our forefathers? How far back in History do we need to go back before people stop saying sorry for others?

To that end should the Americans apologize to the Indians? Should the Chinese for Tibet? Why should todays people apologize for our forefathers? How far back in History do we need to go back before people stop saying sorry for others?

Dont forget the ozzies , oops we sent em there didnt we , same as the America's , ah well never mind Pilgryms , anyway i reckon the Belgians have some grovellin to do , budwieser and sprouts crap

Trust gets you killed, love gets you hurt, and being REAL gets you hated.

Rights groups say over 1,100 civilians have been killed since March in the revolt to press demands for more political freedoms and an end to corruption and poverty.

Syrians killing Syrians, politicians tut tut...Libyans kill Libyans, we attack. The British public are asking why the disparity and are not getting an answer to satisfy them. Who said international politics was straight forward